Victoria’s favourite humourist returns with a hilarious collection of observations on Island living.

For more than twenty-five years, Jack Knox’s weekly humour column has captured the essence of life in BC’s picturesque capital city, a.k.a. Dysfunction-by-the-Sea. In Fortune Knox Once, as in his previous humour collections, Knox gathers together his favourite Time Colonist pieces that best sum up the absurdity of our times.

The subject matter is all over the map: the lost art of handwriting, the sexiness of the Canadian accent, phone addiction, the Rogue Cow of Metchosin, ugly trucks, ugly people, a parody of end-of-school announcements, and a letter to Prince Harry. The chapter on Pi Day is some of the best math-based humour you will read all week. And while are a dozen pieces on plague-related topics—from dog shortage to doomscrolling to the time Knox dropped his credit card into the saltchuck—COVID appears only in brief glimpses, like a moustache-twirling villain occasionally creeping onto the stage in an old-style British pantomime.

Whether you are a born-and-bred Islander who thinks this is all completely normal, or a Mainland transplant lured by the myth of lower housing prices, Fortune Knox Once is the laugh we all need right now.

Jack Knox is the author of two bestselling humour books, Hard Knox: Musings from the Edge of Canada and Opportunity Knox: Twenty Years of Award-Losing Humour Writing, both based on his popular column at the Victoria Times Colonist and both long-listed finalists for the Leacock Medal for Humour. His latest book is On the Rocks with Jack Knox: Islanders I Will Never Forget. Knox’s career highlights include being blasted with blowhole spray by Luna the orca whale, interviewing a nude porn star, and getting a phone call from Barack Obama four days before the 2008 presidential election. In his spare time he performs in a rock ’n' roll band with members of his Tour de Rock cycling team.

Jack Knox's profile page